Rudolf Peierls

Rudolf Peierls, a German-born British physicist, made significant contributions to the field of nuclear physics, particularly during World War II. He played a pivotal role in Tube Alloys, Britain's nuclear weapon program, and was instrumental in the Manhattan Project, the collaborative Allied effort to develop nuclear weapons. His obituary in Physics Today aptly described him as 'a major player in the drama of the eruption of nuclear physics into world affairs.'

Peierls pursued his studies in physics at several prestigious institutions, including the University of Berlin, the University of Munich under Arnold Sommerfeld, the University of Leipzig under Werner Heisenberg, and ETH Zurich under Wolfgang Pauli. After earning his DPhil from Leipzig in nineteen twenty-nine, he became Pauli's assistant in Zurich. In nineteen thirty-two, he was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship, which he utilized to study in Rome under Enrico Fermi and later at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge under Ralph H. Fowler.

Due to his Jewish heritage, Peierls chose not to return to Germany after Adolf Hitler's rise to power in nineteen thirty-three. Instead, he remained in Britain, collaborating with Hans Bethe at the Victoria University of Manchester and later at the Mond Laboratory in Cambridge. In nineteen thirty-seven, he was recruited by Mark Oliphant to take on a new chair in applied mathematics at the University of Birmingham.

In March nineteen forty, Peierls co-authored the Frisch–Peierls memorandum with Otto Robert Frisch, a groundbreaking paper that demonstrated the feasibility of constructing an atomic bomb from a small amount of fissile uranium-235. This revelation shifted the perception of nuclear weapons from impracticality to a tangible reality, igniting interest among British and American authorities. His association with Klaus Fuchs, whom he recruited for Tube Alloys, later led to suspicion when Fuchs was revealed to be a Soviet spy in nineteen fifty.

After the war, Peierls returned to the University of Birmingham, where he continued his work until nineteen sixty-three. He then became the Wykeham Professor of Physics and a Fellow of New College at the University of Oxford, serving until his retirement in nineteen seventy-four. His research encompassed nuclear forces, scattering, quantum field theories, and statistical mechanics. Peierls received numerous accolades, including a knighthood in nineteen sixty-eight, and authored several influential books, such as Quantum Theory of Solids and his autobiography, Bird of Passage. Deeply concerned about the implications of nuclear weapons, he actively participated in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the Pugwash movement, advocating for nuclear disarmament.